And Why Do I Have To Be Suck With You
by BlueAries03
Summary: Jace and Clary get stuck in a convience store in the middle of a rather large snowstorm. Get ready for some fluff!


Clary tried to remember why she had taken this job in the first place…. Nope, she couldn't. She didn't even know why she stayed. Maybe it was because the hours were good, or maybe it was that Luke, her uncle, was the owner. But it certainly wasn't because that asshole Jace was working there.

Whenever she heard that door bell ding around 9 AM, she always braced herself for the onslaught of nicknames. Some weeks it was Shortcake or Strawberry, Ginger, Red, or sometimes even Clare. It was as if he had a fear of saying her actual name. Because of it, she always tried to give herself a wide berth from him.

But it was pretty hard when you were working in a tiny convenience store with a 6-foot-tall guy. This day was no different. Only there was a heavy snowstorm on its way to their small town. Clary loved the snow. It fell across the land like a soft white blanket; like everything was fast asleep. On the other hand, her best friend Simon, hated the snow. And just about everything cold.

She had texted her mom beforehand to pick her up early because traffic could get pretty bad in their part of town. She hated having to rely on her mom for everything. Her mother had her own shit going on without having to worry about Clary. The only reason she was having her mother drive her around was because her car, aka her baby, was in the shop getting an oil change.

Clary was whisked out of her daze by that dreadful bell tinkling and in walked Jace. The redhead rolled her eyes and went back to sorting items on the shelves in the back. She suddenly cursed herself for wearing a bright green shirt because he immediately spotted her and started walking, a carefree smirk on his face.

"What are you doing over here?" she asked halfheartedly. "You need to go get your nametag, Goldilocks."

"That's no way to talk to your fellow employee, Fray." This only made Jace grin more as he leaned back on the shelves that contained various cans of soup.

"Well, you're not gonna be an employee anymore if you don't get your nametag."

He chose to ignore her and busied himself by sorting the cans in a very particular order. After the first day of working together, Clary already knew Jace had some OCD problems. He was always either rearranging things or he was straightening them. You wouldn't expect it from the high school jock. Before working here, she'd occasionally seen him around school but they'd never exchanged more than a few sentences.

"You're staring at me. See something you like?" Jace teased, a knowing grin on his face.

"I'd slap you, but that would be animal abuse," she retorted, her brows knitting together in annoyance.

The pair stopped their bickering once they heard the door open and a customer shuffle through saying they were looking for paper towels.

"Well, looks like you've got to get back to work. I, on the other hand, have a name tag to get." And with that, the blonde sauntered off while Clary rolled her eyes and made her way over to the old woman looking for paper products.

 **Time Skip**

Throughout the day, multiple customers shuffled in and out looking for various items. Seemingly stocking up for the supposed big storm up ahead. Jace and Clary paid no thought and continued working.

Clary kept texting her mom multiple times over the course of reorganizing the shelves of groceries over and over again, per Jace's request, but she wasn't getting answers.

"The power lines are probably down," he remarked, peering over her shoulder.

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock," she barked, her eyes narrowing.

"Hey, I'm just trying to help. You don't have to get all 'Clary' on me."

That was the first time he had called her by her actual name in the whole time of knowing each other. But, she pushed the thought instantly aside.

"Yeah, well I still don't want to talk to you Herondale," seething, she walked to the door and reached for the doorknob. Maybe she could go to the store across the street and stay there until the storm ended and try to get in contact with her mother again. Anywhere away from Jace. Anywhere.

She gave a soft tug, followed by a much harder one. Then a sigh of defeat. Clary didn't want to turn around and ask him but she had to.

"Can you open the door for me, it's stuck."

The tall blonde strode up beside her and repeated the same exact steps she had but to no avail. The door wouldn't budge a single inch.

She looked outside to see that the door handle was encompassed by a crystalized blanket. Her face twisted into a frown and she turned back to look at Jace.

"It looks like it's frozen over," she groaned. This is not how she wanted to spend her Saturday, imprisoned in a tiny store with Jace flipping Herondale. She had thought at this point that she and Simon would be at home watching Friends and drinking hot chocolate watching the snow from inside. But no. She had to be stuck here.

"I'll let Luke know," he said in a reassuring tone which did not sound like Jace at all.

She spun around to see him grab a walkie-talkie from behind the cash register that she'd never noticed before and began talking into it.

"Luke, hey Luke. Do you hear me? Over."

They waited like that for what felt like hours. The only sound being the crackling feedback from the tiny black device in Jace's hand.

"Hiya. Do you guys need anything? What seems to be the problem? Over," Luke's warm, gravely voice burst through.

"Clary and I are done with our shift so we were both trying to leave but the door appears to be frozen shut. Over," Jace replied, some certainty coming back into his voice.

"Gotcha. I'll send the guys over to take a look at it. It won't take long so you kids hold tight."

"Thanks Luke, over and out," he finished, placing the walkie-talkie back in it's spot.

"Well, you know what that means," Jace sang, a toothy grin replaced the tight thin line that was there earlier.

Clary's face suddenly grew hot, "No, I am not going to have sex with you in this store. I work here; it would get us both fired," she glanced down at her green converse and scuffed her feet on the slightly dirty tile floor.

Jace nodded his head, "Oh, so if we were at a place that we don't work at, you'd be totally down to have sex with me."

Suddenly, Clary didn't care. So she slapped him. Good and hard. The sound reverberated in the small store and made her ears ring and her hand sting. The blonde cradled his cheek in surprise more than pain.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," she growled, and stomped away. She was on the way to the freezers in the back. If she had to be stuck in this store with Jace for the next few hours, she should at least get to have some ice cream to drown her sorrows in.

She could hear his footsteps behind her and because of his evil long legs, he caught up to her with ease.

Jace drawled, tapping his foot lightly, "Let's see, do we want mint chip, rocky road, strawberry, chocolate, or plain old vanilla?" He didn't seem to notice how she was still seething and she chose to ignore him.

Clary grabbed a tub of mint chip ice cream and a plastic spoon from one of the utensil containers and headed to the back of the store and Jace followed suit with his own tub of rocky road. She sat on a small wooden stool she found in a corner and he leaned on a wall opposite her. They ate their frozen treats in silence for a while.

"Why do you hate me so much, Shortcake?" Jace inquired, his mouth full of rocky road ice cream. He seemed doubtful and vulnerable, not the cocky, devil-may-care asshole she had known.

"Well for one," the redhead fumed, a curtain of scarlet hiding her pink cheeks, "those names you call me need to stop. Also, you are just a cocky asshole who's too full of himself to care about the lives of others. You just stomp on other girls hearts to make you feel better about yourself and increase the size of your ego. Which is already too big to begin with."

Clary looked surprised with herself and mumbled, "This is just what I think."

Jace looked thoughtful for a few minutes before responding again.

"Well then maybe you just need to get to know me.

Clary scoffed. He was so full of himself that he thinks she wants to get to know him.

"Well, I don't hate you. It's just that you make it really, really hard to like you."

"Maybe we should just get to know each other then. I'll go first," Jace asserted calmly. "I'm left handed, I play the piano, I speak multiple languages, I love Chinese food, my favorite color's green, I hate liars and ducks."

Clary was silent for a few seconds before she squeaked out, "Ducks?"

This made Jace slightly annoyed and he looked over sharply at Clary, her red head bobbing up and down to keep herself from laughing. Ultimately, she couldn't contain herself much longer and began to cackle loudly. Jace joined in because her laughter was becoming infectious.

"It's really not that funny," Jace groaned, pushing himself off the wall and moving closer to her, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Sorry, sorry. I'll go now," Clary finally stopped her laughter, but there was a small smile on her face. "Lets see. I'm an artist, I beat my best friend at video games all the time, I don't have a favorite color because I feel it betrays all the other colors, I cut my own hair, and I wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tattoo when I was thirteen."

He looked inquisitively at her.

"Well, I expected a lot less from a prude like you. Glad to see you actually have a life out of school, Fray."

She snorted and shoved him lightly, still not noticing how close he actually was to her.

The redhead suddenly got up and crossed the room to a hidden part that Jace didn't notice at first and dragged a big black box into the center of the room. It looked like one of those old TVs with the curved screen, like an old box TV. While Jace was observing the device, Clary pulled out a few old cassettes that had small traces of dust on them.

"This is my uncle's store, and I'd used to watch old movies back here while he was working," Clary said with a sad smile, confirming the question that had popped into his head.

Whilst blowing off said dust, some of it got in her nose and she let out the most adorable sneeze Jace had ever heard and turned his head to hide his grin.

"Let's see, should we watch The Lion King, Dumbo, The Little Mermaid, or Aladdin?" **AN: I sadly don't own any of these movies, only the great Walt Disney does.**

"Oh definitely The Lion King. It's a classic," the blonde said with a knowing smile.

"A man of good taste, I see," and she inserted the tape into the already-plugged-in TV and sat back.

Clary cried at all the appropriate times and when she leaned back just a tad bit, Jace sucked in a bit of air. But luckily not loud enough for the redhead to hear over the sound of the movie.

Once the credits began rolling, the ginger wiped her eyes and checked her phone for the time. 5:32. Damnit. It had been two-and-a-half hours already and no one had come to get them yet. Slightly, Clary began to worry. What if someone was on their way, but got in an accident and had to be rushed to the hospital? Or worse? But she pushed those thoughts down with the lump in her throat that was beginning to form.

Jace seemed to notice her discomfort and proposed to play a game of spin the bottle, to which Clary rolled her eyes and told him that you had to play spin the bottle with at least 5 people; and not 2. Jace seemed not to hear her and found an empty soda bottle lying around.

Once the pair were sitting across from each other, the blonde spun the bottle. The glass of the bottle warped Clary's reflection in almost sort of a 'fun house' way as it spun around. Consequently it landed on her and her eyes locked with his.

She didn't know if it was a trick of the light or what, but his golden eyes lit up like the sun in that moment.

 **(Right now it kind of switches over to Jaces's POV, just so y'all know...)**

Jace noticed her gaze on him to find her looking intently at him. He guessed he had never noticed, but her fern-green eyes also had bits of darker green that had some bits of gold mixed in there too. He'd known she'd always been very pretty, always. But now, looking at her, he decided that she was absolutely beautiful.

He scooched closer to her. And it was at this moment he realised: how long her copper lashes were, how pink and full her lips were, and how smooth and soft her freckled skin looked. And that was when his lips connected with hers. Neither one of them knew who made the first move, but neither cared.

He felt her small body freeze against his for a fraction of a moment but immediately soften. His tongue begged for entrance and slid through her soft lips. He felt her small hands suddenly reach up into his hair and a small moan escaped her. Her eyes automatically flew open and she realized just who she was kissing. _Jace flipping Herondale._

Clary ripped her body away from his and her brain suddenly screamed from the lack of contact.

She looked guilty down at the floor, "We shouldn't be doing this," she mumbled, playing with her ratty shoe laces. She then looked up at him and saw the darkness of his eyes and thought, oh screw it! And practically left at him.

Luckily, they didn't take it too far, because Luke and the guys finally came to their rescue and they had to stop sucking face. But as they pair shrugged on their puffer jackets and trudged outside, Luke noticed that the blonde and redhead held hands - pinkies interlocking. A small smile suddenly appeared on his face, _finally those kids got together._

 _ **Thanks guys for everything and I hope you all had an amazing holiday break and got to take a break from your hectic lives. I know I certainly did! I know I say this every time, I am actually almost finished with chapter 3 of Sweets and now I'm just reading through it to find any grammatical mistakes. It will be up in the next few days if not soon. Thanks, love you all.**_

 _ **-kisses️️️**_


End file.
